Redeemed – Mike Kennedy (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

The thing that strikes me immediately about Redeemed, which has always stood out in Mike Kennedy’s music, from first hearing the single Mercy to the EP Grass is Greener, is the lyricism, poetic, earthy, streetwise, philosophical lyrics. The art of writing a great story or putting an interesting message in a song is a lost art, but being someone who works with words myself, I appreciate great art when I see it.

And whilst we are on the subject, it doesn’t hurt that at times, Mike’s voice just touches on the same sonic register and the same beguiling echo of Neil Young, which for any discerning music fan, and me in particular, seals the deal.

But I am not for one moment suggesting that the words here are all that matters; it is just that Mike follows a folk tradition, to a degree, where the power of words is exhausted. No, musically, the song is equally eloquent and elegant.

Redeemed starts in a brooding folk-rock place, and as it unravels, it moves further away from the former and ends up in the anthemic realms of the latter. But building music that reaches such sonic heights is never as simple as just adding volume or velocity, and here is a case in point. It is the additional layers that the song wraps itself in as it heads onward towards its final destination that does the work.

And much of this is due to the quality of the players that he uses to help him step from the singer-songwriter format into the bigger, band driven sound. Ben Trexel’s guitar is always tasteful and restrained enough that it serves the song, he holds back where many guitarists given a song with this much potential would be keen to serve only their ego. Similarly, drummer Daniel Coyle understands the job at hand, pulsing and punctuating, often unfussy and the playing all the better for it. The power of the song is that it teeters on the edge of excess but is smart enough never to fully commit to the chaos and cliche that such a path would bring.

The additional tones and textures that join the musical fray, the small increments of sonic weight that add power and poignancy, the additional details and motifs which, taken on their own, might not seem like much but, when taken together, are the ever-rising platform which allows Mike to access those sonic crescendoes and sky searing conclusions.

Mike Kennedy ticks a lot of boxes. Lyrically profound and musically inventive, Redeemed is a song that blends folk grace with classical rock grandeur, employs simple musical lines, but creates almost progressive rock landscapes, which are accessible yet un-second-guessable. I don’t know what more we could ask from him.